Economic Shocks and Subjective Well-Being
This article examines how economic shocks affect individual well-being in developing countries. Using the case of a sudden and unanticipated currency devaluation in Botswana as a quasi-experiment, we examine how this monetary shock affects individuals’ evaluations of well-being. We do so by using microlevel survey data, which— incidentally—were collected in the days surrounding the devaluation. The chance occurrence of the devaluation during the time of the survey enables us to use pretreatment respondents, surveyed before the devaluation, as approximate counterfactuals for post-treatment respondents, surveyed after the devaluation. Our estimates show that the devaluation had a large and significantly negative effect on individuals’ evaluations of subjective well-being. These results suggest that macroeconomic shocks, such as unanticipated currency devaluations, may have significant short-term costs in the form of reductions in people’s sense of well-being.
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Journal Article biblioteca |
| Language: | en_US |
| Published: |
Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank
2016-01
|
| Subjects: | CURRENCY, DEVALUATION, MONETARY SHOCKS, MACROECONOMIC SHOCKS, WELL-BEING, |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27692 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|